Green Acres Village: This liminal space between worlds . . .

I had expected to be on the road yesterday, but then on Tuesday I discovered winter storm “Avery,” tracking exactly across the area I would be driving through. So, sitting in this liminal space between worlds . . .

. . . the world I am leaving behind, temporarily, this loving community of souls we are nurturing in Green Acres Village, to start out, hopefully tomorrow morning, up to I 90 and on to Acton, Massachusetts, where puppy Shadow and I will be ensconced, by turns, and for about a week, with my older son Sean and his partner Natalie, my grandkids Drew and Kiera, and their mom Sue and her partner Kurt. Also hope to spend one night with my oldest friend from my time there when sons Sean and Colin were babies, way back in the ’60s: Nancy, and her husband Ray, whom we all knew and loved as a funny, brilliant man and whom we all still love as a sweet, slow, smiling being with dementia.

Last week, Gabby, Solan and I met with the two groups who did “service learning” with us this semester, each one contributing 20 hours to farming tasks around here; all this to cap off the first part of their class, called “Biodivercity,” with Biology professor Heather Reynolds. The second part of the semester will focus on two goals: a biodiversity survey of one of our yards as compared to a regular green lawn across the street for one group, and a GAV marketing flyer to IU students for the other group.

The biodiversity group: Emily, Miriam, Hannah and Marlee, whom I worked with much of the time. Great kids! Loved each of them. Hannah already knows a lot about plants, and they were all enthusiastic about our mundane tasks of weeding, cutting back, uprooting, freezing, harvesting.

Here’s the Marketing group, minus one who was sick. Gabby, second from right, who shepherded their service learning here, fills in. Sorry, don’t know their names!

Here are a few photos from last week’s Thursday evening Community Dinner. This week, i.e., last night, we told everybody to stay home and just held a family meal instead, due to remains of storm with slick icy roads.

The floor group last week: Shadow begging in front of Alex, with Dan, Michaele, and Justin. Hank spotted in background.

Neighbor Devon and regular Roberto

And more!

Meanwhile, work on our urban farm continues. We plan to help a professional fence builder construct a privacy fence around three sides of the second DeKist back yard starting the week I’m gone and . . . the long awaited dumpload of horse manure finally arrived. Every bed will receive a two inch layer of manure, plus another layer of leaves (dear old Steve dropped off a bunch of filled leaf bags in the middle of the night). YES!

Notice the chip pile in back of the manure pile. We’ve gone through about half of it, layering paths. All this in prep for winter which caught up with us, this week, way early.